I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the challenge. Seeing several of your entries pushed me to put more effort into each piece. Thanks to everyone who helped in the creative process for a bunch of these characters.

I’m looking forward to next year’s challenge. I’m hoping to get cleaner scans, and some digital ink/painting done on each piece next time. This was real fun to be apart of.

The idea for his design was inspired from a friend of mine’s previous creation. His character, Ragnarok, was some super-powered norse god type of dude. Heavily armored and sporting a greatsword that looked like Cloud’s Ragnarok.

So my interpretation came out as Rag, middle-aged, greatsword-wielding barbarian, complete with He-Man-esque battle harness and a combat skirt instead of a fuzzy loincloth.

The idea for his design was inspired from a friend of mine wanting to get some betta fish for her aquarium. She asked me to draw a “fish guy” and this being a bunch of d&d-esque dudes/dudettes, adapting the concept was easy.

I want the party to meet him as a beta-male wimpy sahuagin, and eventually confront him again when he grows into his siamese fighting fish heritage. Dunno if I want him to be a straight up antagonist, maybe like a nice guy just pushed over the edge. And the party will have to whup his ass to set him straight.

This is Kalarel, a former human priest turned lich, a former antagonist and soon-to-be *spoiler alert* returning antagonist to the party.

Adapted from H1 “Keep on the Shadowfell”, Kalarel shared similar traits to the one found in the module. A cult leader for the demon prince Orcus, Kalarel was menacing several northern villages with occult activity.

After several sessions, the party managed to pinpoint Kalarel’s base of operations and infiltrate and inevitably kill him. His death was questionable, as the inner chamber collapsed over him while the party escaped. They never did check for his remains…

This is a creature known to the party as the “Beast Charmer”, an illithid ranger, and former antagonist to the party in our current campaign.

Alhion, as the illithid was known to his kin, wasn’t the most psychic-capable mind flayer. His telepathy only affected simple minded creatures. He trained his body and honed his fighting capabilities so he could physically control what his mental powers couldn’t.

The Beast Charmer lead an army of kenku, small humanoid crow people, against the city Mission. The party foiled his attempts to overtake the city twice. His current whereabouts are unknown.

This is Varro Faldo, a half-elf rogue, and in our current game an upcoming villain.

Varro initially was a bard in his younger years on Tortoise Island. He made his living through entertainment, coercion and seduction. But his exposure to the most common patrons of Tortoise Island, pirates, gave him a new outlook. Rather than convincing others into giving him what he wants, he’d rather take it by force.

These are The River Rats, particularly the notable members of this crew of pirates; from the top going clockwise, Ofeen, a half-elf cleric, her brother Kelson, a half-elf rogue, Shield, a dwarf fighter, and Sabre, an elf fighter.

When their ship was commandeered, they ended up slumming around the port of Mission. There they had a chance encounter with the party, who had just gained ownership of a brand new schooner without enough hands to man it. The party expressed interest in hiring them, as they appeared to be the only folks at the port who looked like weathered sailors; most of the folk at port were fisherman or coastal merchants. Hoping to hijack the boat, their de facto leader Kelson offered a seemingly harmless challenge; a friendly sparring match to see if the party was worth working for.

The match escalated to a straight-up brawl in which the party claimed victory. With their original ship commandeered and their egos bruised they were ready to call it a day, but the party offered a second chance. To crew their ship, join on their adventures. They were given a shot at redemption.

This is Jariah, a human sorcerer NPC in a campaign my buddies and I play in.

They found her on the Isle of Dread, leading a tribe of primitive natives against an oppressive kopru menace. Her methods were a bit unorthodox and the more she fought alongside them, the more unstable she appeared to be.

The party found out she used to be apart of another adventuring party that had journeyed to the Isle of Dread. They all perished, and as the sole survivor, Jariah had to figure how to survive on the island herself. Her time spent there, away from civilization, caused her mentality to deteriorate.

Joining the party after defeating the kopru, Jariah brings her wild magic arsenal to the group.

This is Gualichu, a tiefling warlock played by my buddy Jarrod in a one-shot we ran almost 2 years ago to get a bunch of my buddies acquainted with D&D.

He’s since been retired and is now an NPC in our current campaign. Much like a lot of notable NPC’s, he’s a callback to our old characters and his demeanor is drawn from how he was portrayed back then.

In our campaign tieflings, a person with demonic/fiendish lineage, look more like the 3rd ed. versions (a person with devil horns, maybe sharp teeth, a tail, hooves) instead of the straight up big horn devil guy from Legend looking demon people of 4th ed. They’re pretty rare as well, which is why I gave him a kimono/eastern motif to his outfit/hair. As it would be rare to see a feudal samurai in medieval england, it’s rare to see a tiefling running around in Amerath.

He’s essentially the ‘wizard’ of the npc gang who fought alongside the party in their early adventures.

Fun fact: Gualichu is permanently scowling because back in his level 1 days, he was forced to kill a fellow adventurer with a point blank Eldritch Blast to the face. (whattup nando)

This is Krum, a dragonborn paladin played by my buddy Jared in a one-shot adventure we ran a while back.

Krum’s been retired as a PC and demoted to an NPC in our current campaign. Outside of experimenting with the paladin class, I don’t think Jared had any plans for Krum. So I took a few liberties with him.

Krum lost faith in his old god, traded in his church for a tavern, and exclusively only tithed to beer and wine. Despite losing faith and the inherent powers granted to a paladin therein, he’s still a capable and ferocious warrior.

Krum, along with two otherfriends, had fought alongside the main party early in the campaign as hired swords working for Fiddenmar. As their quests became completed, Krum had refused the party’s offer to join their crew; to stay and “defend” his city, particularly his city’s pubs.

Concerning the fumes around his face, I don’t recall which element of Dragon Breath Jared chose. Can just say it’s beer breath for now.

This is Tristam, a human rogue that I played in an adventure my cousin ran.

Since that adventure is over, he’s been demoted to hireling for a group of my players. Though as our games have progressed, he’s become more of a pet npc/go-to utility guy for the party (since their group lacks a rogue).

When I was playing him though, I wanted to make him more of a swashbuckler ala Prince Colwyn from Krull. But our adventure never got past a few sessions, so there wasn’t much room for development. His outfit/look was a straight bite off of Locke.

I suppose he’s living out his dream now since the current party he’s hired to adventure with owns a schooner. Nautical adventures for daaays.

For his description, I had this to work with: The Runes and elemental mist like this picture [of Runeborn Xerath] runes and element from the top picture attaches him together and this is his body build [picture of Marbled Malphite].

Factoring his size/strength and that he’s a shardmind, I had to splice those league dudes together with a few liberties of my own to crank out a legit proportioned Arkvoodle. In regards to his gotsumon-esque face, just based on how Arkvoodle has been during our tabletop sessions, I felt [during drawing this earlier] that’s how I pictured his shard-based(?) face to look.

I had a lot of liberties with Tommy, mainly cause I didn’t have a written description for him, and all I can vaguely remember from our last kickback was something along the lines of him looking like Nightcrawler.

As a 1st level rogue with leather armor, a short sword and shurikens, I figured he should have a sort of ninja-esque look. But I didn’t want to make his setup too flashy. A catsuit, some leather padding and a shanker.

This is Antonius Stark, a warforged (robot people from Eberron) artificer played by my buddy Kris.

Here’s what I had to work with: Like all other warforged, mechanical and golem-like in appearance. Unlike other warforged, Stark wears everyday garments like a cloth tunic, pants, and a hooded cloak. To conceal his appearance, Stark often pulls the hood over his head and partially over his face. He wears a utility belt that contains various small potions, artifacts, and gadgets, and keeps a large satchel to carry other similar, and larger items.

I forgot the utility belt (cruuucial) and he ended up with more a rogueish look instead of a true artificer. Then again, artificers do gain some rogue-like abilities back in 3.5.

This is Summer, a razorclaw shifter (half lycan, half person) druid played by my buddy Melissa.

Here’s what I had to work with: She’s a fairly stocky girl due to her diet and feral aspect. Dark eyes with bright pupils (orangy-yellow). Straight white bangs. Dark back hair styled in dread locks or braids. Keeps various trinkets like feathers, pins and beads in her hair.Left shoulder always has her clan’s quilt. She will always put it over pauldrons. Wears various trinkets and accessories like tooths, beads, tusks, feathers, etc.

Summer is the shapeshifty type druid and her feral form turns her into an even stockier werecat/bear. The tattered clothes are for sure appropriate.

This is Nari-lana, a genasi (planetouched? more on that later) swordmage played by my buddy Jeena.

Nari is the first genasi that I’ve had in one of my campaigns. And trying to simulate how people would react to a person with elemental blood in their ancestry is kinda different. Well maybe it isn’t considering we’ve got like half-dragon people and crazy dwarves running around too so..

Now that I think about it I did have a genasi in another game, but it was just a one-shot adventure. A firesoul genasi too. They’re basically Flame Princess from Adventure Time swaggin’.

Here’s what I had to work with: Pale skinned, with white shoulder length hair; the front is braided back. She has gold eyes. Her ears are pointed enough to recognize that she has elf blood. She’s tall and strong.

For the outfit, I went with a variation on Tom Cruise’s suit-up from Legend.

This is Fiddenmar & Kolag, a couple of notable NPC’s in a campaign some friends of mine play in.

Fiddenmar is a halfling (hobbit) merchant while Kolag is a goliath (similar to giant) barbarian.

They were your typical entry-game npcs; playful merchant that grants an initial quest, and her stone-faced bodyguard. But as the party’s adventures centralized in Fiddenmar’s city of service, she and Kolag continued having run-ins with the party.

Through the players’ exploits, the two have grown substantially wealthy and continue to provide the party access to higher level goods (at a price) and opportunities for further adventure.

Fun fact: Kolag got inspiration for his name from Jared‘s first D&D character, a goliath barbarian named Lokag.

edit: my bad about missing a day, tuesdays are my long days at class/work.

This is Axehammaran, a dwarf fighter played by my buddy Jarrod (Poots).

Axehammaran takes the drunken dwarf stereotype way past the line. And nobody seems to mind.

The flask at his waist contains McCormick’s Peach Vodka. He requested that I put that in this entry.

Fun fact: In Axehammaran’s very first session, a Lizardman threw a punch at his face landing a critical hit and ended up knocking one of his front teeth out. This was hilarious because, at the time, Jarrod was missing his front tooth as well.